Pressed Flowers

I'm still recovering from my surgery. While I'm leaps and bounds better than I was 4 weeks ago, I'm not as far along as I would like (aka miraculously healed ahead of schedule). It took 3 days to decorate our house for Christmas instead of our usual one because I'm slow. I need to take breaks when the pain sets in. And I can't seem to catch up with the mess around the house (understandably, considering I can't bend over well or lift anything over 10 lbs). 

So instead I'm focusing on something easy - pressed flowers. I put a bunch of summer flower between paper towels and my biggest cookbooks back in early September and they've had plenty of time to dry. I also had done a bunch in the spring - pansies, tulip petals, peonies, grape hyacinth, and violets. I shared the peonies in a previous post because they came out so lovely. 

The hardest part about these are photographing the glass frames. The reflections are so intense with the double glass - they looks so pretty in real life, but trying to snap a picture all I see is my hand holding the phone or worse. 

Pressed Peonies (shared previously):

Pansies, violets, hyacinths and tulip petals:

Chantilly Bronze Snapdragons:

Totally Tangerine Collarette Dahlias:

Nasturiums, Zinnias and Cosmos:

Other flowers that were too big for the glass frames so I threw them all in one 11x14 black one: 

(Peonies, dahlias, zinnias)

I love the idea that this is a way to keep the garden with me year round. 

What I won't be pressing again? Dinnerplate dahlias. Oooh boy, those made a moldy mess. One even ruined a page in my cookbook (whoops!). I only had one come out (above) and the rest were a disaster. I have also noticed that white flowers don't look very good either, they just look brown. I think some flowers, like begonias, are too watery. Amaranth,and echinachea are too hard to press flat. 

Next year I want to press some Lady of Shalott orange roses. And the pink Zephyr roses from the garden archway. I also have coral and magenta knock-out roses to try. Geraniums. And I think a wider variety of zinnias could be very striking. Anyone else have any experience with pressing flowers? Any recommendations for next year?